A sculpture garden was never in the plan for Colin Noble, longtime owner-operator of the Abiquiú Inn.
He initially wanted to simply build an outdoor patio for diners. Then, one day, local sculptor Doug Coffin (Potowatomi and Creek Indian) caught his ear with a well-timed suggestion.
“He was just going to his car, and he said this had the makings of a good place for showing sculptures,” Noble tells Pasatiempo on a recent visit to Abiquiú. “I agreed, but the first year we didn’t do anything about it. The next year, we met again, and again we agreed it was a great idea and didn’t do anything. But the next year, we did.”
“You plant that seed,” says Coffin, who’s two seats over from Noble. “It takes a little while to get going.”
Indeed, work on the Abiquiú Inn Sculpture Garden began in 2017, and Coffin and fellow sculptor Star Liana York presided over a competition among artists to fill the grounds. They included only 20 sculptures that year, and perhaps as many as 30 the following year.
The Sculpture Garden now has 72 creations, some of which weigh more than 1,000 pounds each, from 30 artists. The garden as currently arranged is expected to stand until the end of April 2025.
Noble estimates that the garden takes up more than five acres of the Abiquiú Inn’s 55-acre property, and it’s approaching maximum density.
“Soon, Colin’s going to have to say, ‘We’re going to have to shut it off at 100,’” Coffin says. “Mark my words. That will be happening.”
Animal-themed sculptures abound at the Abiquiú Inn; York’s lifelike cast bronze mountain lion stands sentry over the outdoor patio, and Sue Berkey’s steel TheRed Coyote series prowls the perimeter. A pair of origami horse sculptures by Kevin Box stand out front, and a bronze horned toad by Joe Spear crouches in the stone footing of the sculpture walk.
Sue Berkey, The Red Coyote, steel and powder coat
Spencer Fordin
Other creations are made of bronze and marble, steel and clay, terra-cotta and limestone, and range in price from $450 up to $91,000.
Coffin, who came up with the idea, says they dropped the competition angle this year because all the submissions were so good.
“The submissions were building up,” Coffin says of the momentum behind the garden. “We had more choices, and we saw the cream rising to the top. We thought we’d make it an invitational and ask these guys to come back because we already know the caliber of their work.”
Coffin lives about eight minutes up the road from the inn, a fixture in the community located 48 miles northwest of Santa Fe, and he has called New Mexico his home for about 45 years. Coffin taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts and has served as a judge — alongside York — at the Southwest Association for Indian Arts Indian Market.
One of Coffin’s sculptures, Sun Moon Shaman, stands on the grounds at the New Mexico State Capitol, and a similar piece, his Snake Dance Moon, marks the entry to Abiquiú Inn. Coffin says credit for growing the garden belongs to Noble.
“What do you do with the work? You’ve got to have bases and pedestals. Some of them need different elevations,” he says. “That’s where Colin came in and in an enthusiastic way. ‘Give them what they need.’ He didn’t know what he was getting into, because it takes a lot of what [curator] Tina Kleckner is doing these days. She helps them onboard and answers the questions. They show up and she tells them when to be here, what’s expected of them, and what’s going to be provided on this end. She’s made it so much easier than it used to be.”
Estella Loretto, Unfolding Blessings, aluminum
Spencer Fordin
About 40 percent of the artists on display come from New Mexico, Kleckner says, and some of the sculptors are trucking their creations from the East Coast. Most have an idea what they want and need in terms of display, but some arrive and decide they want to be arranged next to a sculptor they admire.
“It’s great exposure for them,” Kleckner says of the artists. “We have some artists who have six pieces here and some artists who just have one. But like Doug was saying, if we’re working with the same artists, then they know that they will be invited back next year. We send out invitations in March, with installation dates to be done by May 1. So that gives them some time to think about what they have either in inventory or to work on new pieces too.”
Only about 10 pieces are holdovers from last year, and a few pieces inside the inn weren’t appropriate for the outdoors, Kleckner says. Abiquiú Inn is next to the O’Keeffe Welcome Center, and that has helped draw a lunch crowd and people who want to stay nearby as they wait for O’Keeffe home and studio tours to begin. That has helped give the sculpture garden an unexpected bump.
“There’s a lot of people who don’t know this is happening, but they come to see the O’Keeffe Museum connection,” Coffin says. “They want to stay here, but then they realize, ‘Well, there’s a couple shows here.’ And a lot of them are probably artists themselves and they either want to think, ‘How can I get in and be part of this?’ or they tell their friends who are sculptors from back wherever, ‘Hey, you need to check this out.’ And now it’s kind of self-perpetuating.”
